By Fanuel Chinowaita
HAKWATA, CHIPINGE — When darkness fell over Hakwata, it did more than switch off the lights.
It narrowed opportunities.
In this remote community in Chipinge District, about 240 kilometres from Mutare and close to the Mozambique border, limited access to electricity, water, transport and economic opportunities had consequences far beyond inconvenience.
Children’s ability to study was affected. Teachers were reluctant to remain at local schools. Residents struggled to access services and markets. Women had fewer opportunities to participate in productive economic activities.
For people living in poverty, the absence of basic infrastructure can turn climate vulnerability into a human-rights challenge.
That is why the arrival of a 200-kilowatt solar mini-grid in Hakwata represents more than a development project.
It is changing how a community accesses energy, water, education and livelihoods — areas that directly affect people’s ability to live with dignity.
The project is part of the Climate Adaptation Water and Energy Programme (CAWEP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the Government of Zimbabwe and funded by the United Kingdom Government.
Since 2022, the programme has sought to strengthen climate resilience through a Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach, recognising the interconnected nature of energy, water, food security and livelihoods.
In Hakwata, that connection is visible.
The solar mini-grid is benefiting about 12,500 people. Five boreholes have been solarised, while the programme has supported 153 biogas digesters.
Household solar devices have been introduced, while a NetOne booster has improved communication in the remote community.
The electricity has also powered productive activities, including a grinding mill, an oil-processing machine, a garden and a bakery.
For residents, clean energy is therefore not an abstract climate solution.
It is becoming a tool for exercising opportunities that were previously constrained by energy poverty.
When climate vulnerability becomes inequality
Climate change does not affect everyone in the same way.
People with resources can often adapt by moving, accessing alternative water sources, changing livelihoods or paying for services.
Poor rural communities have fewer options.
In places such as Hakwata, environmental vulnerability overlaps with economic vulnerability. Limited infrastructure can make it harder for people to respond when climate pressures affect water, agriculture, food security and livelihoods.
The result is that climate change can reinforce inequalities that already exist.
For Hakwata residents, access to renewable energy is consequently linked to more than reducing dependence on conventional energy sources.
It is linked to the ability to access water, support livelihoods, keep public services functioning and create opportunities for future generations.
That is where climate adaptation meets human rights.
Women move from beneficiaries to economic actors
One of the most visible changes has been among women.
Women in the community have become involved in productive activities, including operating an oil-processing machine.
Some women own electric tricycles and have obtained licences to operate them.
These changes have given women greater opportunities to participate in economic activities within their community.
Rather than seeing women simply as beneficiaries of climate interventions, the Hakwata experience places them among the people using climate-resilience infrastructure to generate livelihoods.
That distinction matters.
A climate programme can provide infrastructure, but its deeper impact depends on whether people who have historically faced economic exclusion are able to use that infrastructure to improve their lives.
For women in Hakwata, access to productive assets is beginning to create that possibility.
Electricity reaches the classroom
The impact is also being felt at school.
A local school has seen enrolment rise from about 600 pupils to around 800, while the pass rate has increased from approximately 60% to 70%.
Teachers who previously left for schools in better-serviced areas are now finding it easier to remain.
The figures do not prove that electricity alone caused the improvement, but residents and local stakeholders associate the improved services with the wider changes brought by the project.
The connection between energy and education is particularly important in remote communities.
When schools lack basic services, children in already disadvantaged communities can face another layer of inequality.
Improved infrastructure can therefore strengthen their opportunity to access education on more equal terms.
For Hakwata, solar power is becoming part of that equation.
Water, dignity and the right to basic services
Five boreholes have been solarised under the programme, linking renewable energy directly to water access.
For a rural community, reliable water is fundamental to household life, food production and health.
The intervention demonstrates why climate adaptation cannot be viewed only through the number of solar panels installed or the amount of electricity generated.
The real test is what happens to people’s lives.
Does a child spend less time dealing with water shortages?
Can a family produce food more reliably?
Can a woman operate a business?
Can a teacher remain in a remote school?
Can residents communicate with the outside world?
Can a community protect the infrastructure on which these opportunities depend?
These are ultimately questions about dignity and equality.
But Hakwata has not escaped poverty
For all the changes brought by the project, residents say the community still faces serious challenges.
Poor roads remain a major obstacle.
Some residents previously walked more than 12 kilometres to reach transport, making it difficult to reach markets and essential services.
And not everyone has escaped poverty.
Mukai Makaya said the community still needed more support.
“Although we have this project, a lot still needs to be done to improve Hakwata Village. Some people are still poor,” she said, appealing to the government, UNDP and donors to continue remembering Hakwata.
Her concerns complicate the success narrative.
The presence of solar electricity does not automatically mean that all households have achieved economic security.
Nor does renewable energy by itself resolve the structural barriers created by poor roads, poverty and limited access to markets.
For climate adaptation to be rights-based, the benefits must reach people who are most vulnerable rather than simply improving infrastructure in places where some residents are already better positioned to benefit.
Who pays when climate infrastructure breaks?
There is another question that Hakwata residents are already confronting: what happens when the project develops problems?
Beneficiaries of the project are contributing towards insurance for the solar mini-grid, according to villagers who spoke during a visit to the community.
They said the solar grid has been insured and that when it develops problems, the insurance company will cater for costs covered by the arrangement.
The name of the insurance company could not be independently established.
The insurance arrangement nevertheless reveals an important dimension of climate resilience that is often missing from discussions about development projects: sustainability.
Installing infrastructure is one thing.
Keeping it working is another.
For Hakwata residents, the solar grid has become sufficiently important to everyday life that beneficiaries are contributing towards protecting it.
The arrangement suggests that the community is not simply waiting for government or development agencies to maintain the infrastructure.
It is also trying to find ways of sustaining an investment that has become central to its livelihoods and access to services.
A community asking to be remembered
UNDP Representative in Zimbabwe Dr Ayodele Odusola described the Hakwata mini-grid as a model for extending renewable energy to remote communities and helping bridge the energy-access gap.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Evelyn Ndlovu also captured the relationship between basic infrastructure and development when she said: “There is no development without electricity and water.”
For Hakwata, that relationship is no longer theoretical.
Electricity is powering businesses.
It is supporting water access.
It is helping schools operate in better conditions.
It is enabling women to participate in economic activities.
It is improving connectivity.
And it is giving a remote community new tools with which to confront some of the vulnerabilities associated with poverty and a changing climate.
But the voices from Hakwata also provide an important reminder: climate justice is not achieved simply because a renewable-energy project reaches a vulnerable community.
Justice requires asking who benefits, who remains excluded, who bears the costs and who is responsible for maintaining the gains.
Hakwata still needs better roads.
Some residents remain poor.
And the sustainability of the infrastructure will depend on whether communities, government and development partners can continue to support it.
The community’s experience therefore presents a more complicated picture than a simple rural electrification success story.
It shows what becomes possible when climate adaptation is connected to people’s everyday rights and livelihoods.
But it also shows how much more vulnerable communities need when climate resilience is to become lasting and inclusive.
For the people of Hakwata, the solar grid has brought more than electricity.
It has opened doors to water, enterprise, education, communication and greater economic participation.
The challenge now is ensuring that those doors remain open — and that the people who have spent years living with the greatest disadvantages are not left behind as the community moves forward.
The sun may be providing the power.
But climate justice, ultimately, will be measured by what that power enables people to do with their lives.